ReadWriteWeb

Last week Barack Obama's Presidential transition website Change.gov added OpenID login for commenters and now the entire site has been put under a Creative Commons license. These concepts are no longer just the dreams of "crack-pot fringe case" advocates - they're the official policy of the US President Elect.

The particular Creative Commons license chosen by Change.gov, the "By" license (one of many options), means that instead of the default US Copyright of "all rights reserved," visitors are now allowed to reuse any of the content from the site as long as they give attribution back to the original source. Standard Copyright is for protecting scarce content but Creative Commons is a legal framework set up to make sharing and reuse as easy as possible.

The Creative Commons Foundation announced today that award winning TV and radio news show Democracy Now! will now be distributed under a CC license. Democracy Now! is broadcast daily on more than 700 television and radio stations around the US and as a podcast online.

Whether you agree with the show's political perspective or not, Democracy Now! is undeniably one of the best produced and distributed independent media projects in the world right now. If there are more high profile collections of media distributed under the innovative Creative Commons License, we don't know what they are. Creative Commons is a variation on traditional copyright that switches permission to republish content to opt-out with publisher applied conditions.

Successful Creative Commons music store Magnatune announced today that they have made another radical transformation in their business model. Customers can now pay as little as $5 per month for unlimited streaming and $10 per month for unlimited DRM-free downloads, they can purchase as little as 1 month of membership and they can use Paypal's recurring payments feature to stay subscribed if they wish. The company, whose motto is "we are not evil," then gives 50% of revenues to the artists.

We really like what Magnatune is doing and we think this business model is great, but we're concerned that the service is still too antiquated in its music delivery to get customers beyond the fact that it has a really obscure catalog.

If I apply some wacky new type of license to my creative work, is it going to hold up in court if a conflict comes down to that?

According to some participants, a key US court yesterday made a decision in favor of free, open intellectual property licenses like Creative Commons, though the details of the decision are complicated.

The Creative Commons Foundation launched a much-needed database of case studies today, highlighting CC licensed content from around the world. Creative Commons licenses are built on top of international copyright law but let content producers offer their work with more refined permissioning for re-use than the de facto "it's mine don't touch it" sentiment of standard copyright.

When working to advance a new concept or technology, few things are as important as showcasing proven, inspiring use cases. The new CC database does a good job of that. If your organization is interested in making your content easier to distribute, this database is a great place to learn from the experiences of others.

Rifflet is a new site where musicians can gather to finish each other's work. The concept involves the uploading of something called a "rifflet," which is a piece of a song - like a bass line, a guitar riff, a drum beat, or something else altogether. Each rifflet must also be less than 60 seconds long. Members of the site can then browse through these "proto-songs," and combine them with other rifflets they find or even just incorporate them into their own original music.

Adding photos to your blog is one of the best ways to enhance your content and attract attention to your writings. The only problem is that finding quality photos to use can be difficult. Bloggers end up going with one of three options: stealing, buying, or using Creative Commons licensed photos. Now, that third option just got easier with the introduction of the Photo Dropper Wordpress plugin. This new plugin searches flickr for Creative Commons licensed photos for you to add to your Wordpress blog.